I've found myself wondering how a party, such as the Republican Party, can be the party most friendly to business and still have such an abject lack of understanding as something so fundamental to message delivery as the concept of marketing. Before you lambaste me for being style over substance, I wouldn't crucify just yet.
The Republican Party has found itself to be lost in the sea of ideals. More specifically, trying to identify, re-identify or even understand what it stands for these days. The problem seems to be this; we are now a party that has been through the 60's upheaval, the 70's 'revolutions', the excesses of the 80's and so forth. We are now the adults that were informed as youth by a culture that was a little more comfortable with bad behavior. As an acid test, when was the last time you were aghast at the thought of a couple living together
before marriage? I'm not and thus my point; the face of the party is not what it was even two decades ago.
Ronald Reagan was a figure from a bygone era. As many, I see President Reagan as a conservative hero. Reagan came from an era and had a workman like focus that I don't see in my peers but recall as a something of my Grandparents. It's that sense of purpose. It is the sense that there is work to be done and you best roll up your sleeves and get to work.
The question we now pose is, 'get to work on what?'
Conservatism. Easy answer. I realize that is the question of the hour. The real question is what about conservatism needs to be worked on? Don't we already know what makes us conservatives?
Seemingly, no.
During this election cycle, I'd heard on many media outlets that conservatives were not happy with the party as it is now and that they were 'Reagan-style' Republicans. By that you mean that you support immigration amnesty, raised taxes or larger government? Is that the Reagan you recall? With all the great things President Reagan did, he also did the above things too. I understand that I'm committing Republican blaspheme by suggesting that Mr. Reagan be nothing but the archetype mold of a conservative. We need to stop living through Reagan. We need to stop hoping that at the end of 4 years 'another Reagan' appears. Doing so just further asserts that the party is living in the past. We don't need to find the next Reagan. We don't need to find the next great leader assumed to be in the wings. We need to
be leaders. Reagan respected Goldwater but he didn't want to be him. We should respect Reagan but we need to be the leader of todays issues. Most importantly, we need to roll up our sleeves.
Nice sloganeering as it goes what of the conservative movement? Who are we? Well, we aren't much different than we've always been. Fiscally responsible and for family values. The Democrats, by the way, sell that same message. I do understand that we actually mean it.
We need to focus on what is good for the daily life of all Americans. This mostly boils down to economics and finance. We spend quite a lot of time talking about social conservatism. I'm one of those social conservatives. I wonder though, should we maybe use social conservatism as a means by which we live our lives and less so as part of a political agenda? It seems the perception at large sees Republicans as meddlesome in the lives of Americans. The party I knew wanted out of the lives of citizens. Why the big push to assert those things in a political context now? Our Founding Fathers didn't want that, why do we? I want America to be of a stronger moral fiber than it is currently. I also realize that the America I'm in now is being parented and governed by former hippies, radicals, stoners and mostly average Joe's. I can only hope that I can live a moral life and that others see the benefit of it and do the like. However, I can't make them. Why do we think that such things can be done legislatively? Save for the bad law that is Roe v. Wade, we need to get out of the business of meddling in personal morality. It's a sticky wicket and more complicated by the more permissive culture that has set forth a path often antithetical to conservative ideals.
Stick to the size of government, get out of the way of business and keep America safe. A much more simple message.
And thus to my opening point; the Republican inability to sell a message or even understand what message we wish to sell. You'll note in the Presidential election that the Obama campaign adhered to a very specific message, albeit a message with nil for content. Still, we couldn't move a message. We couldn't capitalize on Putin's aggression. We couldn't craft a message when the failure of Democrat banking policies brought down the sum total of the economy. To invoke a little George Will: We couldn't hit slow one over the middle of the plate. We were too busy looking at our shoelaces. We seemed to be stuck on Bill Ayers when we should have been pointing out the protective need from an aggressive Putin. Ayers was a dangerous hippie but Putin was KGB. Get the difference and perhaps the point?
If we aren't out selling the message that growing business is good for jobs (i.e. - tax policy) and that we are the party that will best protects America, then American doesn't much want to listen. If we don't market our strengths as we deliver them, we get what we deserve. Lost elections. We need to understand that even the Americans that are moral people are also not willing to be hectored about from a political party. We need to understand the target market and deliver them the message of what we do.
"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." Inscription on John Wayne's Headstone
